Enjoy! Schematics and everything!
http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/isa-opl2-card

alexanrs wrote:

Enjoy! Schematics and everything!
http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/isa-opl2-card

Sweet! 😎

It sure is doable, everything is known.

I value the original card and its sound. But if I were to build one, I'd be very tempted to make some changes.
Like options for an op-amp with more modern pinout and the output to be a direct line level output instead of from the LM386 speaker amp.

/\
The nifty thing about having schematics is exactly that: you can make modifications and turn it into "your card" instead of just an Adlib copy =)
If I were to build such a thing (which I might, once I build a little CNC for PCB milling) I'd add a little mixer and two headers: one as an input for the motherboard's speaker signal and another for the actual speaker. Then make it so sounds would come off the speaker if nothing was plugged into the line out port.

I priced everything. Without the PCB it should cost about 40-50$ The breadboard I will be a extra 15$
This is without shipping. If I buy enough to make 10 or so I could get the cost down. But I don't plan on selling them unless if I could get a real PCB and not a breadboard. I could cheap out on the parts too, but I'm not doing that.
I thought it would be much cheaper then that. Still I might go for it.

I've built an ISAOPL2 card, it's really nice with great sound - certainly worth the effort :

What did the PCB cost you?

Wasn't there some similar project on vintagecomputer forums? The board with extra BIOS so larger harddrives could be recognized.
Have you asked there as well? Because people over there might also be interested in this project and last time I visited you could still do trades over there.

For the hell of it, another clone;

image hosting more than 5mb

upload pictures online

This one is mine. Never fabricated, but will be some day once other things are done. The output and volume control are interchangeable with other things, as I planned to jumper it straight to the AUX_IN on another card. A swappable daughterboard allows you to change the arrangement of things, such as this one;

NOTE: These are old versions of the board. Also, the colors chosen by the program in the first picture make it look as if the edge connector is not there - the program chose the same color for background as it did solder mask cutouts and it wasn't easy to change so I didn't bother because it wasn't the final board design and I didn't care.

Resistors, capacitors and potentiometer would cost ~7 USD.
Diode, transistor, logic chips and LM386 would cost around 4 USD.
Two Yamaha chips can be bought on aliexpress for 6.86 USD shipped.
That is about 18 USD for all of the components.
PCB can be etched in home with help of the laser printer and some cheap chemistry. You can then cut it out with a knife (scratch the surface multiple times and break it) and sand the edges. Or buy old school FR2 phenolic-cotton-paper laminate for PCB, instead of modern glass fiber FR4 and you can cut that using scissors 😜 It will be cheaper and it has the smell of old electronics. It is possible to make a PCB for 5 USD (it would look like this http://www.atari8ethernet.com/hires/D500_Etched_hr.jpg )

So, in theory, it would be possible to make that card for 23 USD (that's the price when you buy components just for a single card). If you know where to find parts that are not overpriced.

I calculated this price checking electronic stores in the country I live (Poland), so we possibly have lower profit margin in the stores than in the US. Retail price for single resistor or ceramic capacitor here is around 0.03 USD.

And of course you need to have some experience in DIY-stuff and experimenting to make it in home for such low cost, because not everyone likes or knows how to make PCBs with use of clothes iron and laser printer :p

saturn wrote:

What did the PCB cost you?

got it directly from Sergey (VERY helpfull guy) and IIRC it costed around 10eur or something very close to it.

IMHO getting yamaha chips from aliexpress is a bad idea , you are just asking for clones if you get them there 🤣

Well, then such music card would be a clone of a clone :p
Do you think these chips on ebay could be fake too?
... or does it even matter if it's a clone or not?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-IC-YAMAHA-DIP-24 … -IAAOSwcBhWYwpk
http://www.ebay.com/itm/YM3812-DIP-24-YAMAHA- … kWHPuUqV5our63Q

^ you can never know since they are from HK but they do seem OK to me.
The problem is that noone cares about old clone chips, even the sellers might think they are originals. They were made back in the day when they were profitable and 30 years later noone remembers what they are about 🤣
I got my chips from UTSOURCE , highly recommend it: http://www.utsource.net/

adalbert wrote:

Resistors, capacitors and potentiometer would cost ~7 USD. Diode, transistor, logic chips and LM386 would cost around 4 USD. Two […]
Show full quote

Resistors, capacitors and potentiometer would cost ~7 USD.
Diode, transistor, logic chips and LM386 would cost around 4 USD.
Two Yamaha chips can be bought on aliexpress for 6.86 USD shipped.
That is about 18 USD for all of the components.
PCB can be etched in home with help of the laser printer and some cheap chemistry. You can then cut it out with a knife (scratch the surface multiple times and break it) and sand the edges. Or buy old school FR2 phenolic-cotton-paper laminate for PCB, instead of modern glass fiber FR4 and you can cut that using scissors 😜 It will be cheaper and it has the smell of old electronics. It is possible to make a PCB for 5 USD (it would look like this http://www.atari8ethernet.com/hires/D500_Etched_hr.jpg )

So, in theory, it would be possible to make that card for 23 USD (that's the price when you buy components just for a single card). If you know where to find parts that are not overpriced.

I calculated this price checking electronic stores in the country I live (Poland), so we possibly have lower profit margin in the stores than in the US. Retail price for single resistor or ceramic capacitor here is around 0.03 USD.

And of course you need to have some experience in DIY-stuff and experimenting to make it in home for such low cost, because not everyone likes or knows how to make PCBs with use of clothes iron and laser printer :p

I don't want to cheap out on parts. That and wile I can make a pcb I reather not.

So... i found a spare piece of copper clad and I thought it would be a nice idea to finally make that PCB 😁
Of course everything was made the cheapest way possible, BUT it has even got description layer and a kind of soldermask. I 3D printed a grid with some circles covering soldering points and sprayed that board with PCB protection spray 😜 I also tinned the ISA connector with a really thin layer of tin. I ordered 5 pairs of Yamaha chips for 13 USD from Ebay and bought some other parts locally.
That PCB now looks like some low-budget board from early 90s 😜 (and i think that "look" suits Adlib better than the modern blue-colored PCB)

Very cool idea with the 3D printed mask! I hadn't thought of that. I will definitely steal that idea.

Been looking all day for the PCB. Bought one a few months ago but got sidetracked with other projects and didn't build it. Now you stirred me and wanted to start building it today, but can't find the damn PCB anywhere.

Hmm. I think it's copper-clad and laser printer time. 😀

I finally assembled it, and it works, well, kind of 😉

Here is a sample of Lemmings music, which sound perfectly fine to me, the signal is clean and nice.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … iew?usp=sharing

I checked a few games and they work okay, but there is a problem with Prince of Persia...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … iew?usp=sharing

it sounds totally wrong and creepy 😁 I recorded its intro twice and it sound a bit different each time. I didn't have such problems with other games, but I only checked Lemmings, SimCity 2000, MadTV and Supaplex.

Do you have any idea what could be the problem? I tried using another set of Yamaha chips and the result is the same. Could it be a PC hardware or software problem? I'm using 4DPS mainboard with Am5x86 @ 160 MHz. ISA bus speed is set to 7.2MHz or something like that. If I don't get any suggestions regarding PC hardware then I'm going to check the connections on PCB.

Well done sir.
There are people who talk and people who do.